Hometown Killer

by Carol Rothgeb

  Sapp (nodding): Yep.

  Moody: I mean, put yourself back in our position, okay? You’re the guy with the tie on today. Think about how strange that is—how strange that sounds. I mean, here you are and you’ve got to think about the truth now because you told us three different stories. So you’ve got to think like the detective—like the cop. Which one’s the true story?

  Sapp: I told you which one’s the true story.

  Moody: You’re the first person that’s told us about two women being there. You’re the first that’s told us about two women being there at the time you put them there.

  (Sapp just stared at Moody.)

  Moody: What time did you start drinking that day?

  Sapp: It’s hard to say. I guess you could call it daybreak.

  Moody: So what’s going on this day, man? You and Karen have it out—again?

  Sapp (staring straight ahead for a long time and then finally answering): Yeah.

  Moody: So because you love her—and I mean you do care for her—you get the hell out. But you are mad—you’re pissed! So tell me where do you go from there? What’s going on?

  Sapp: I went up to Kinsler’s (Bar)—I guess that’s the name of it—got some more beer and set off walking. Just walked, over there by Penn Street.

  Moody: So do you walk up there to them? This wasn’t the first time that you saw some of these guys, was it?

  Sapp: No.

  Moody: When you walked up there, who was familiar to you right off the bat?

  Sapp: John.

  Moody: How’d you get to know John? Think about that because John’s talked to us about it.

  Sapp: I know. John knows my brother.

  Moody: Did you go scrapping with John sometimes?

  Sapp: Yeah. He knew a lot of them places. Actually, for who he is, he knows a lot. He’s not as dumb as people think he is.

  Moody: We know that. We know that. So, you walk up there. . . . You know John. Who else do you know there?

  Sapp: Well, I knew Dave, but I didn’t know Dave was actually his dad. I seen him around with John a time or two.

  Moody: How many times did you go over to John’s house on—where he lived?

  Sapp: Lagonda Avenue. Went to the white house. The house we went to on Lagonda was on the other side of the overpass.

  (John and Wanda moved to the house on Lagonda Avenue, upstairs, after Phree and Martha were murdered, so it would seem that Sapp still had contact with John after that night.)

  Moody: Who else did you recognize and know? From before that day?

  Sapp: Jamie. But I didn’t really know him—too much.

  Moody: So we’ve got John, David, and Jamie that you know. We talked last night about the biracial guy, right? Curly hair?

  Sapp: Yeah.

  Moody: Did you know him before that day?

  Sapp: I’d seen him before. He’s got a smart-ass mouth and nobody liked him—’cause he’s a punk.

  (Moody reached over and picked up one of the mug shots and held it up.)

  Moody: Picked him out last night. Remember?

  (Sapp stared hard at the picture and barely nodded yes.)

  Moody: So, they tell you they got there in a car. Did you come in the car with them? Were you out riding with them?

  Sapp: Guess it’d be stupid to say no, huh?

  Moody: No. It would be stupid not to tell the truth. We’re dealing in facts. This is about your movements before everyone ended up down here. So, that day, how and when did you hook up with them? What was going on?

  Graeber: Come on, Bill.

  Moody: We know . . . Listen to me. Look at me for a minute. We know Jamie Turner told two different sets of people that he had a date that day with two girls and you were hooked up in it too. Now you need to straighten this out—now. And you know from dealing with us, we ask a question, we know the answer. “A date with two girls.” And then he told somebody else he had a date with two whores. So let’s go with it—the facts, man. The truth. You need to tell your side of this. The truth.

  Sapp: Down by the pond. That’s where the girls was at.

  Moody: All right. How’d you come to get there? Where were you before that?

  Sapp (whispering): Riding around.

  Moody: Who was riding around?

  Sapp: Everybody.

  Moody: Who was driving?

  Sapp: Me.

  Moody: What were you in, man?

  (No answer.)

  Moody: Now I’m going to tell you something else right now. At a certain time that day, we’ve got Marciszewski standing on—right here—right here out on the sidewalk next to Schuler’s. We’ve got John walking across the street to a vehicle. And we’ve got somebody sitting in that vehicle—parked right there behind the wheel. And we know what time that is from some people that don’t have anything in the game. They’re not even involved. They’re witnesses. More evidence. “A date with two whores.” We’ve got Dave and John right here and we’ve got somebody else in that vehicle behind the wheel. It’s about facts. It’s about the truth.

  Graeber: Let it go, Bill.

  Sapp: John told you.

  Graeber: You tell us.

  Moody: I’m telling you. You guys had “a date with two whores.” It was planned from the start. Other people have told us where people were at certain times. How’d you hook up? Where were you? What were you driving? Take us through it. Tell us what you did! It’s your turn now to get right.

  Sapp (indifferently): I guess it don’t even matter, does it?

  Graeber: Where’d you hook up?

  Sapp: Just a little ways down from the house (on Linden Avenue).

  Graeber: What kind of vehicle?

  Sapp: Mercury Marquis.

  (Sapp’s wife, Karen, owned a Mercury Marquis.)

  Moody (leaning close to Sapp): Jamie’s going around telling everybody he’s got a date with two whores. How’d that get set up?

  (Sapp shook his head no.)

  Graeber: Bill, you already know. . . . You’ve talked to us long enough. And you’re shaking your head no? You know better than that, right? Huh? Don’t you? Who set the meeting up?

  Sapp: Jamie.

  Moody: Okay. How did he know them?

  Sapp: That I really don’t know. I don’t know how he come to know them. But apparently he said he’d met them. . . . Well, he met the one, I guess, ’cause her mother used to pimp her out at the bar all the damn time. It made John mad. ’Cause I think John liked . . . Phree? But he really liked her a lot. Well, they’s talking about if they had a car, they could have a—go out riding around and have a party. A Mercury Marquis is a big car—extremely big.

  Moody: So, who all meets you down here to get in the car?

  Sapp: The whole gang.

  Moody: So, you’re driving. Right?

  Sapp: Yeah.

  Moody: John, Dave, Jamie—the biracial guy?

  Sapp: Yeah.

  Moody: Okay. That’s who you called the “Neanderthal”?

  Sapp (laughing softly): Yeah.

  Moody (referring to the pond): Kind of a pleasant place to be?

  Sapp: Yeah! If that right there had never happened, you could—almost like a sacred little place.

  Moody: So when did Martha and Phree get there that day?

  Sapp: They were already there. They was sitting down right there—bullshittin’. By this time we was all over the area. I’m not quite sure the name the boys and Jamie had called them little girls. But you should of seen John. He started shaking. He started stuttering. When he gets real upset, he stutters. He can’t really do much—started crying. Didn’t think too much about it at the time—until Jamie slapped the one.

  Graeber: What did you do?

  Sapp: Nothing until they started messing with John. Took all the names and all the scorn—held them down while I cut the clothes off.

  Graeber: Who’d you hit?

  Sapp (whispering): I don’t know.

  Moody: You do know. It was just like J.R.—you wer
e there for John. You’ve always been there for John too. And here Phree is—the one that John had a crush on—and she tells Jamie that he’s ugly and calls John a “fucking retard.” And this is the one that John had known since he’d been a little guy and since Phree had been a little girl—that he had a crush on. And she calls him a “fucking retard.” Someone picking on somebody that you care about that is their own special person—through no fault of their own.

  Sapp: You have to know John.

  Moody: We do know John.

  Sapp: So much hurt.

  Graeber: How’d you hit her?

  Sapp: With my fist.

  Graeber: How many times?

  (Sapp shook his head.)

  Graeber: You don’t remember?

  (Sapp shook his head no.)

  Moody: Where’d you hit her at, man?

  Sapp: Side of the head.

  Moody: You’re damn right! Right in the mouth—right in the head. How many times?

  Sapp: I don’t know.

  (Sapp lifted his right hand and looked at it,)

  Sapp: That can tell you.

  Moody: Yeah. Let me ask you something, Bill. Hey!

  Moody (tapping Sapp on the leg): Did you do it till she quit? Did she call him a “fucking retard” anymore? Did you drop her like a rock?

  (Sapp stared at his hand, then sniffled and shook his head.)

  Sapp: I don’t know. You should’ve seen the hurt in his eyes. His will disappeared. Just shut her fucking mouth! There was no need for them to take the rocks and stuff. . . .

  Moody: It was just another bitch—just like Helen and all the rest of them—and she wronged somebody you cared about.

  Sapp: Yeah, that’s a lot of justice.

  Moody: But it’s the truth and it’s something we deal with. Now how many times did you hit her? In the head?

  (Sapp looked at Moody and shook his head.)

  Sapp: I don’t know. I opened my whole hand up! (Sapp held up his right hand.)

  Moody: Where at?

  Sapp (pointing to a place on his hand): That’s why that’s like that.

  Moody: From hitting her?

  Sapp: So, you’d think I’d never forget that.

  (Moody grasped Sapp’s hand and examined it closely.)

  Sapp: Every time I eat—every time I write . . . that’s why I don’t like shaking hands! (His voice broke.) You don’t want to shake hands with a dead girl!

  Moody: How many times did you hit her?

  Sapp (whispering): I have no idea. That I don’t know.

  Moody: Did you hit her till she dropped?

  Sapp: Oh, I imagine if you checked the tree, it’s probably got me on it too! ’Cause I hit it a time or two!

  Moody: Your blood? So after you hit her, what happened to her?

  Sapp: Everybody took turns.

  Moody: How many times do you think you hit her?

  Sapp (looking at him): If I say “one”—I can say a “thousand.”

  Moody: Okay. Did she fall to the ground when you kept hitting her? Did she say anything?

  Sapp: No, ’cause I thought she was dead. I honestly thought she was dead.

  Moody: Where was Martha when this jumped off?

  Sapp: Right there. Yeah, just right beside us.

  Moody: Did anybody scream?

  Sapp: There was no scream. There was nothing. They didn’t scream.

  Moody: So, this story about these two women grabbing these girls—that’s not true, is it?

  (Sapp shook his head no.)

  Moody: Were there two women there at that point in time?

  Sapp: Not at that point in time.

  Moody: No. That’s right. There wasn’t. Okay, Phree’s on the ground. What’s going on with Martha?

  Sapp: She was already naked. I don’t know about where her clothes are or how they got—or anything like that. Phree’s the one that had on . . .

  (Moody went over to the cabinet again.)

  Sapp: . . . the shorts with the flowers on them.

  (Moody came back to the table with the paper bag in his hands and reached inside the bag. He pulled the shorts out of the bag and laid them on the table.)

  Moody: ’Cause these two liked to switch clothes. Mom’s told us that. So you punch her out—she goes down—because of what she does to John. She takes that light right out of his eyes. She hurts him deeper than he’s been hurt in a long time. Doesn’t she? And you reacted just the way you—you take care of business. So she’s on the ground. Dave’s got Martha’s pants off. Is that what you said?

  (Sapp barely nodded.)

  Moody: What’s he doing?

  Sapp: Telling her to “flip the hell over.” Then she gets on—I guess, I don’t know, his knees are hitting in the dirt or something. So they tell Martha to get on top of Phree.

  Moody: But before that happens, what are you doing with Phree?

  Sapp (staring at the shorts): I guess I’m leaving my name.

  Moody (touching the shorts): Right here. Leaving your name. And this isn’t the first time that you’ve left your name, is it?

  Sapp: There was Helen.

  Moody: Helen was after this, Bill.

  Sapp: I can’t tell you anything that happened before—I’m going to tell you that—’cause I was far beyond what I am now.

  Moody: Okay. Well, let’s deal with this . . . (He touched the shorts again.) . . . right here first. You’re leaving your name right here. When you’re doing this, what’s Phree doing?

  Sapp: Nothing.

  Moody: You thought she was dead?

  Sapp: Yeah.

  Moody: Let me ask you something. When you’re doing this—now we’ve already talked about it—you’re zoned in to this. You’re on this. You’re locked in to this. How do you concentrate on doing this with all the other chaos that’s got to be going on around you?

  Sapp (voice hushed and full of wonder, trying to explain): There is no other chaos around me. I don’t hear nothing. I don’t see nothing. Feel nothing. And I don’t give a shit about nothing. Everything around me is black. The only thing I see is what’s in front of me. I don’t pay attention to nothing. It’s like being in outer space or being out there in the wide open with just a set of eyes. Nothing else exists! I’ve left—I am the environment!

  Moody: Look at the precision here, man.

  Sapp: I don’t see precision, though.

  Moody: You told us yesterday you wanted to be a brain surgeon.

  Sapp: Well, what you want and what you get is two different things.

  Moody: You told us yesterday about the scalpel.

  Sapp (suddenly agitated): Oh, that’s just lovely! I’m a walking modern-day damn Jack the Ripper!

  Moody (pointing to the shorts): What are you doing this with, here?

  Sapp: Big Buck knife. About eleven inches—extremely sharp—like a razor. It’s mine.

  Moody (nodding): You’ve got it with you all the time, ’cause you’ve always got your knife with you. It’s your thing, man.

  Sapp: Once you get past being scared of them, they become your friends. If they’re held to your throat—while people do what they want with you—you respect them! (Sapp laughed.)

  Moody: You said something yesterday that got me thinking last night. Listen to me. “How do you tell the man you love that the woman he’s married to . . . ?” And then you stopped. You need to finish that right now. Let it out, man. Finish it. Free yourself of it, Bill. Right here and right now.

  Sapp: I ain’t never gonna be free.

  Moody: Yes, you are. We’re going to do it right now. What’d your mom (biological mother) do to you, Bill? This is troubling me. I need to know why. We need to know why. She dropped candle wax on you. She seared your testicles.

  Sapp (dumbfounded, looked at Moody): How the hell did you know that?

  Moody: You told us.

  (Sapp shook his head no.)

  Moody: Yes, you did, last night.

  Sapp: You’re not going to tell my dad this, are you? That
would kill him. He would kill her.